No Tax Breaks for Petrochemical Plants

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If we’re serious about addressing climate change then we should be incentivizing renewable energy, not oil and gas. Unfortunately, that’s not what’s happening in Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania General Assembly passed legislation (HB 1100) approving a large giveaway to the fossil fuel industry using your hard-earned taxpayer dollars. Email your legislators and Governor Wolf TODAY and urge them to support a veto of HB 1100.

HB 1100 gives millions of dollars in tax breaks to billion-dollar companies and an industry as a whole with a poor track record of protecting our air, water and health. The tax breaks are estimated by the Pennsylvania Department of Revenue to come to $26.5 million every year for each new plant and companies are allowed to sell or transfer them to another petrochemical company if they determine they can’t use the tax credit any longer.

The capital investment and job creation requirements that are touted as the significant benefit of this policy were weakened through an amendment and there’s an additional provision that only requires industry to make a “good faith effort,” whatever that means, to hire from the local labor market.

Petrochemical facilities leave a large carbon footprint, as they’re humongous emitters of greenhouse gases. Spurring their growth is a direct contradiction to the carbon reduction targets--26% by 2025 and 80% by 2050--Pennsylvania set earlier this year as part of our plan to tackle climate change. 

There’s a better path forward. Surrounding states are investing heavily in renewable energy and green jobs. New York is making over $5 billion in clean energy investments--now responsible for 151,000 clean energy jobs. New York’s economy is thriving without relying on the petrochemical industry.

HB 1100 lowers the bar and “rolls out the red carpet” for climate polluters.